1/10/2009 E3 aboard Escapade by Mark Lloyd

[marlloyd]

1/10/2009 E3 aboard Escapade by Mark Lloyd -- [View in Reports Page]

Bottom Team:	Mark Lloyd, Dionna House
Visibility:	80'	Time:	9:48 AM
Temp:	49F - 51F	Surge:
Max Depth:	208FSW	Avg Depth:	78FSW
Bottom Time:		Total Time:	1:42
Bottom Gases:	18/45	Deco Gases:	EAN50,O2
Backgas Config:	Double	Deco Tanks:
Deco Profile:
6 people out on the Escapade today. Nick, Clinton, Sue, Beto, Dionna, and Mark. It was a bit nippy starting out but once out on the water the sun warmed us up. A bit of a chop as we motored out to the site but once we arrived it had settled down considerably. Sue and Beto were in first with their scooters, Dionna and I next, with Clinton and Nick jumping in after us. There was a bit of a surface current but it was possible to kick against it without drifting past the downline. As we descended we could not really make out anything till about 120' or so. Light was filtering down pretty good so once we arrived at the pinnacle we could see what was around us. Where we were at it looked to be about 170' and dropped off to the West. We kicked out West passing a few fish like the China, Gopher, and Copper Rockfish. I did not see any schools of adult fish at all. I did see a couple of small schools of juveniles and solitary juveniles here and there but overall not a lot of fish. Large Gorgonians were plentiful and 4 or 5 Simnia snails (Delonovolva aequalis) were on a couple of the bushes. Other than that I did not see any unusual small creatures. We dropped over a lip and stopped at about 200' before leveling off and making our way around the bottom part of the pinnacle. After we were part way around the current started pushing against us so we turned around till we encountered the current on the other side. At this point Dionna called the dive at about 26 minutes. We ascended to 120', shot the bag and did an uneventful deco. After we returned to K Dock the afternoon crew were waiting to board so we quickly retrieved our gear, or at least most of it, thanks Rob, and had lunch. A nice sunny day of great diving, looking forward to the next tech boat.